Eschatology (from the Greek ta eschata) literally means “the study of the last things.” It is a branch of theology that focuses on what has traditionally been called the Four Last Things, individually (death, judgment, heaven, hell) and universally (Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, general judgment, the end of the world). (See Question #64.) Human beings will experience, individually, the end of their own earthly life, and then, at a time known to God alone, the entire world (and physical universe) will meet its own end as well. The first ‘four last things’ occur when the person dies and the second ‘four last things’ happen at the end of the world. Each man and woman on earth, since the time of Adam and Eve, has or will experience death. Genesis 2:17 states that death is the penalty for sin, and since we have all sinned in one way or another, then all of us must die someday (Romans 5:12). What happens after death? Particular judgment occurs immediately after the person dies. Philosophically and theologically, once the immortal soul leaves the mortal body, there is death. The dead body begins to incur rigor mortis and finally putrefaction (decay and decomposition). The soul, however, since it is immortal, cannot stay on a physical place like Earth without a physical body. Particular judgment happens instantaneously when death occurs. Jesus Christ appears, but not as Savior and Redeemer as He did on earth on Good Friday; rather, He appears as Judge of the living and the dead. The dead person is judged by the life he or she lived on earth. Kenneth Brighenti & John Trigilio "The Catholicism Answer Book"

Avoiding sin (keeping the commandments) is only half the mission every human person is given by God. The other half is doing good. What did the person do in life? It is not enough to say, “I did not kill,” or “I did not steal,” or “I did not commit adultery,” even though avoiding those things and any sin for that matter is a good thing. Matthew 25:31–46 tells the parable in which Jesus is compared to a shepherd with a flock of sheep and goats. The sheep are placed on the right, and the goats on the left. Those on the right go to heaven, those on the left are sent to hell. What determines if you are a goat or a sheep? That same passage explicitly shows that the sheep are those who took care of others (friends, neighbors, and strangers), while the goats are those who ignored the needs of others. Jesus says to the goats in this section of Matthew’s Gospel, “‘I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Sins of omission, such as neglecting the corporal and spiritual works of mercy (see Question # 148) are incriminating evidence that you are a goat and will be placed on the left to be cast into hell. People often think their salvation is assured, so there’s no need to “do good” as long as they have faith and, at most, avoid committing sin. Matthew 25, however, mentions no quiz on what people believe; rather, they are judged on whether or not they have put faith into practice. Catholicism teaches that at particular judgment, one of three verdicts occurs. One is the worst-case scenario: an evil and immoral person who has not only committed a mortal sin and is unrepentant, but has also neglected to help others. That person is condemned to hell. The other alternative is the best-case scenario; a good and holy person who has kept the commandments; lived a moral, virtuous, and holy life; and has consistently helped stranger and friend alike is rewarded with the joy of heaven. A third or middle possibility is that the person is not bad enough to go to hell but also not good enough to go directly to heaven. Their sins have been forgiven on earth but there is still some attachment to sin (they have fond memories of some of their sins). They need some cleansing (purgation); hence, they go to purgatory before going to heaven. (See Question # 67.) Everyone in purgatory is absolutely guaranteed to go to heaven, but they must first remove any and all attachment to sin before walking through the pearly gates. Kenneth Brighenti & John Trigilio "The Catholicism Answer Book"

I am deeply distressed to have to write this chapter. I can truthfully say with C. S. Lewis that... there is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But [1] it has the full support of Scripture, and, [2] especially, of Our Lord's own words; [3] it has always been held by Christendom [thus three arguments from authority]; and [4] it has the support of reason.' Let us investigate in this chapter the support of reason for the doctrine of the existence of Hell. In the next chapter we will speculate about the nature of Hell. For now let us merely define it as the eternal separation from God. Hell is certainly the most unpopular of all Christian doctrines. It scandalizes almost all non-Christians. How shall we judge it? By counting heads? The democracy of truth is, of course, nonsense, both in principle (it is the facts that make an idea true, not the number of people who believe it) and in practice (most great truths were discovered by those who swam against the stream). As a matter of fact, even democracy supports Hell if only we extend the franchise to the dead by tradition. Human authority thus votes for Hell. Divine authority (Scripture, Christ, and Church) votes for Hell. Reason votes for Hell, as I shall try to show. Only one vote is cast against it, that of modern fashion. But it must be reason or authority that judges fashion, not vice versa. Yet this is the rarest of phenomena: reason judging fashion. I can only ask the reader to try very hard to be truly honest and open-minded, not merely repeating the shibboleth but enacting the intellectual labor. Is the question really important, though? What difference does it make? We began this book with that question, to justify the whole enterprise; perhaps we should do the same with this chapter. Hell makes an infinite difference. The height of the mountain is measured by the depth of the valley. The greatness of salvation is appreciated against the awfulness of damnation, what we are saved from. C. S. Lewis notes that "I have met no people who fully disbelieved in Hell and also had a living and life-giving belief in Heaven." (2) To see the difference anything makes, we can always s make the thought-experiment of removing it and seeing what happens. With no Hell, all roads lead to the same place, whether that place is Heaven, or death, or reincarnation, or a mythic shadow-land. And if all roads lead to the same place, it makes no ultimate difference which road we take. But if they lead to two infinitely different places, it makes an infinite difference which one we take. According to Christianity, We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision.' Yet we must avoid a popular trap here. Both orthodox Christians (who believe in Hell) and Modernists (who do not) often fall into it. It is the trap of deciding whether or not to believe in any given idea on some other ground than that it is true-for example, on the ground of it being interesting, or safe, or popular, or comforting, or challenging, or fitting in well with previously held ideas. One form of this is the argument for Hell often found in anti-Modernist polemic: if you do not believe in Hell there will be no deterrent to immorality on earth and we will have Hell on earth. "It was thought that if the fear of eternal punishment were removed .... society would collapse into an anarchical orgy." Peter Kreeft "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven"

There are three weaknesses to this argument. First, we do not really know such consequences. Second, servile fear is not a moral motive, though it is an effective one, as every tyrant knows. But God is not a tyrant but a lover, and "perfect love casts out fear." Third, it is simply dishonest; it is the trap mentioned above, believing an idea because of something other than its truth. In this case, the reason is better than popularity or comfort or interest-it is that it is a deterrent to immorality. But it is still dishonest. The same sort of dishonesty is often used to justify the modernist's disbelief in Hell. "It inspires servile fear rather than genuine love." Perhaps it does (and then again, perhaps it does not-it certainly doesn't in the saints). But even if it does, that does not prove it isn't true. "This is a gun pointed at your head" inspires servile fear, but it may be true nevertheless. You see, both sides can and often do produce dishonest and irrelevant arguments that you should believe or disbelieve because of the consequences of believing or disbelieving, not because it is true or false. These two sets of "arguments" simply cancel each other out, and we are left with the original question: is it true? The Modernist has one argument left, though, which we should consider before turning to the substantive question. It is that Hell is part of exoteric (public, popular) teaching, but not part of the esoteric (private, hidden) truth known to the spiritually mature. The refutation of this idea is, first, that the theologian is ignoring the fact that Christianity, unlike Eastern religions, is not esoteric but open to all, one of the three "religions of the Book" together with Judaism and Islam; also, to say that Hell should be taught only to the masses who need deterrents to immorality is to assume that the speaker is a saint with pure motives who needs no deterrents! The defense against the charge of dishonesty is usually that Hell is not a lie but a myth. But once someone can distinguish between the factual and the mythical, it is a lie to tell him the myth as a fact. Once children ask: "Is Santa Claus real or just a story?" It is a lie to tell them it is literally, not just mythically, true. Once we ask: Are Hell and Heaven and Incarnation and Ascension and Resurrection and the supernatural in general real? it is a lie to answer yes and think no. Either these teachers have contempt for the intelligence of the masses, placing them at the believing-in-Santa-Claus level, or they are liars. The majority of Modernists, I think, are honest enough to want to instantly "emancipate" all of humanity from belief in Hell simply because it is false. With such people we can have an honest argument. Peter Kreeft "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven"

The strongest reason, for the Christian, is that Jesus believed in it, and taught it strongly, clearly, and frequently. There is a strangely popular idea around that Jesus taught a gentle, "acceptable" message and Saint Paul toughened it up with things like Hell. All that idea shows is how little its proponent has read the New Testament. Almost all the Hell-fire comes from the lips of Jesus, almost none from Saint Paul. It is Paul, not Jesus, who seems to flirt with universalism. Even Jesus' most popular, compassionate, and loving saying talks about Hell: John 3:16. It is five times mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount. If there is no Hell, or even if there are only a tiny few in it so that there is very little practical danger for ordinary people, then Jesus is scaring us just for the Hell of it, and is a bad teacher, not a good one. Suppose one says that Jesus never taught Hell, that some parties unknown added all the Hell passages. Who? His disciples? They all misunderstood or perverted His message that radically, and then died for the lie? It is utterly arbitrary to pick out the sayings of Jesus that you happen to like and to construct a version of "Christianity" based only on them, then invent some unhistorical hypothesis of apostolic fakery or ecclesiastical forgery to disqualify all the passages you happen not to like! One does not need to know Freud to suspect rationalization here. We like to construct a Christ in our own image rather than reconstructing ourselves and our ideas in His image; to judge rather than to be judged. It saves us the trouble of truth. Truth is often very troublesome. For instance, the truth of Hell is very troublesome. There is only one rational argument for Hell. No argument that seeks to prove that Hell is necessary because of some fundamental dualism in the universe, or by a yin-yang notion of good and evil, or even by the absoluteness of divine justice, will work, for the simple reason that Hell is not necessary, not a structural part of the universe. It is freely chosen, even freely created, by human and angelic spirits. The free will is the only convincing reason for the existence of Hell. Scratch freedom and you find Hell. Everyone wants there to be free will and no one wants there to be Hell, yet if there is either one there must be the other. For life is a game, a drama, not a formula, and "if a game is played, it must be possible to lose it." Peter Kreeft "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven"

If the happiness of a [free] creature lies in [free] self-surrender [to God], no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully "All will be saved." But my reason retorts, "Without their will, or with it?" If I say "without their will" I at once perceive a contradiction: how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say "with their will," my reason replies "How if they will not give in?" But, you reply, God forgives all sins, even sins of pride and refusal of self-surrender. Surely. But "forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered if it is to be complete," like any gift. We either accept that gift or refuse it. To refuse it is Hell. "The doors of Hell are locked on the inside."" Love locks no doors, and God is love. But perhaps we are not. To anticipate the next chapter's essential picture of the nature of Hell in this connection, C. S. Lewis says it is proper to think of Hell not as a sentence imposed on him but as the mere fact of being what he is. The characteristic of lost souls is "their rejection of everything that is not simply themselves" (von Hugely). Our imaginary egoist has tried to turn everything he meets into a province or appendage of the self. The taste for the other, that is the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in him except in so far as his body still draws him into some rudimentary contact with an outer world. Death removes this last contact. He has his wish-to live wholly in the self and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is Hell." As a matter of fact, this Hell is God's greatest compliment to human free will and responsibility. God does not say to us, "You are creatures of your heredity and environment, for which I am ultimately responsible, not you. I cannot expect you to prefer good to evil, altruism to egoism, self-surrender to self-glorification and gratification. You are an innocent, unfree victim of circumstances. I cannot blame you or forgive you, for there is nothing to forgive." Instead, He says, "You are like a god: free to create. Your heredity and environment I gave you as your raw material, and of course I will justly take them into account in judging you. But ultimately it is not them and not I, but you, who choose your character and your destiny." The reason God does this astonishing thing, you see, is that He is not a puppet master but a Father. Peter Kreeft "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven"

1. Retributive punishment is not moral. It is vindictive and unworthy of God.Answer: it is objective justice, not subjective vindictiveness or vengeance, that necessitates punishment. More, it is even God's love that constitutes the punishment, as we shall see in the next chapter: the fire of God's love (which is His essence and which He cannot turn off) is what tortures those who hate Him in Hell. The loveless seek their own element, lovelessness, and are tortured by the element most foreign to them, love.

2. How can finite sins merit infinite punishment?Answer: How can one little foot slipping off a cliff "merit" loss of one's whole life? Furthermore, the punishments of Hell are not infinite but finite, and proportioned to the sins, just as Heaven's rewards are proportioned to the sanctity. But an unending time awaits us all, simply because of the fact that we are immortal.

3. The awful pains imagined in Scripture are barbaric, crude, primitive, and horrible.Answer: Indeed they are. Though the fire and the gnashing of teeth are imagery, what they image is indeed horrible. This is not an objection; this is simply a true observation. The observation becomes an objection, an argument, only by assuming that what is so horrible cannot exist. But how can that be proved? Very horrible things do exist. Pain to the point of panic and insanity exists. Insane delight in cruelty exists. The Holocaust exists. The objection is not an argument but a confession of naiveté.

4. How could God let a being created in His image go to Hell? How could He destroy His masterpiece? It would be an eternal failure.Answer: God does not destroy His human image in Hell because God does not destroy and because the thing that destroys itself in Hell is no longer human but spiritual garbage. The Hebrew word for Hell, Gehenna, was the name of the garbage dump outside the holy city, which had been used for human sacrifice by pagan tribes, so the Jews used it for the most degrading thing possible: burning garbage. In all our experience . . . the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log and you have gases, heat and ash. To have been a log, means now being these three things. If soul can be destroyed [and Hell means eternal death, not life; and death of soul, not body, which has died on earth], must there not be a state of having been a human soul? . . . in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for men at all (Mt. 25: 34, 41). To enter Heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter Hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man; it is remains." Peter Kreeft "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Heaven"